Looking for guinea pigs for new site theme

[tj86430]

please suggest some sites or forums whose layout you like.

I do like this, but I don't know which theme it uses: http://www.pokeritieto.com/keskustelu/

[fwiffo]

The fixed width of the layout is intentional, though not necessarily permanent. Fluid-width layouts are a bear to develop, and there are many good reasons why so few sites use them. Even in this day and age, 1024 is still pretty much the standard. Long lines of text are hard to read, so if we want to use more horizontal space than that, probably we should add more columns with other functionality or information in them.

Regardless, I know that a lot of people would prefer a fluid layout that fills the screen, so I'm keeping that in mind. However, because of the technical complications, it'll be fixed width for most of the development process and then adapted to a fluid layout if we decide to go with that. I'm keeping that option open during development so I don't make any decisions that are completely incompatible with a fluid layout.

And injecting my opinion, I have no idea how you browse the web with a maximized browser on a 30 inch monitor. I have my browser in a ~1200 pixel wide window side by side with other applications, and that's still too wide on many sites.

As far as the background color, my color perception is good. The background is tan, not pink. Not sure how dark blue on tan can be too-high contrast when most of the web is black on white... Do you have your monitor on some sort of vivid or game mode or something?

@tj86430: That site uses a prosilver based theme, which is what the new theme is based on (you may notice it shares many of the same icons/graphics).

[Esu]

Windows 7 with Firefox

With Highcontrast 2 theme in Windows (black background and lightgreen text) the PM, quote and report buttons are invisible.

Edit: So are the delete and edit post buttons.

[Joaz Banbeck]

...subsilver has subtly different shades of blue in alternating posts, which makes threads easy to read. Our new custom themes is just an unbroken sea of white posts...

Ahhh, yes. I didn't know what I was missing until it was named. I just knew that the posts blurred into one another. We do need some vertical delimiters. The different shades of blue were so unobtrusive that I didn't notice them until they were gone.

[Joaz Banbeck]

please suggest some sites or forums whose layout you like.

I do like this, but I don't know which theme it uses: http://www.pokeritieto.com/keskustelu/

I like that one, mostly. The layout appears uncluttered, and in that respect, is a lot better than ours. The only problem with it is the bi-shading of the posts is too different in color, and is distracting.

[msgreg]

iPhone 5.0.1.

I like it. The icons to go to first unread message need to be 2-3 times bigger, equal to the go stone icons. They are currently imPossible to hit without zooming. Also title of "view unread posts" would be great if it were also a link, essentially a refresh.

[Joaz Banbeck]

Virtual tourist ( http://forum.virtualtourist.com/forum-1 ... forum.html ) is much better for bi-shading. Also less cluttered.

MBWorld ( http://mbworld.org/forums/c63-amg-w204-93/ )is an example of a forum that I consider ugly, cluttered, and clunky.

[fwiffo]

I agree that the alternating colors makes it more readable and will add that.

[Joaz Banbeck]

A random bunch of forums, with my opinions.

http://ubuntuforums.org is an example of terrible use of colors.

http://stackoverflow.com is an example of poor grouping of icons

http://forum.sysinternals.com has much better grouping. The bi-shading is too strong.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/forum.php is clunky and cartooish. But then, a lot of these guys have suffered oxygen deprivation a few times.

http://www.bautforum.com makes a much better use of color. But the user profile is spread across the screen instead of being to the left.

http://www.phpbb.com/community uses color better, with very good shading. I tuned the monitor to monochrome and it was still usable. It is an example of a forum that a colorblind person could use.

[Joaz Banbeck]

http://bbgroup.forum-phpbb.co.uk/ Apparently bee stings cause brain damage too.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freen ... c55d4338a0 Good use of bi-shading. I particularly like the grouping in the purple box, though it could use some internal spacing.

[uPWarrior]

I particularly like the default theme of Invision boards. An example here:
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/

[jts]

On my iPad the background and banner don't clash quite so badly with each other, or with the blue text in the posts (although the background is still definitely pink-tinted). Also, on the iPad I can appreciate the texture of the background more, and it looks like we got a crisper font. Still prefer the old style.

[daal]

The column separators on the various topic pages are made of a fixed number of dots which proves to be too few if the row has more than two lines.

The big black and white stones marking each topic look inelegant.

On the "topic review" window, which you see below when writing a post, the text is flush with the left side which looks a bit cramped.

[Jordus]

I don't notice a salmon pink... looks like a wood or parchment paper type color to me....

[Jordus]

please suggest some sites or forums whose layout you like.

I do like this, but I don't know which theme it uses: http://www.pokeritieto.com/keskustelu/

Looks like a color edited version of pro silver or prosilver special edition (http://demo.phpbb3styles.net/prosilver+Special+Edition).